Hack Reactor

Hack Reactor

About

About

Founded in 2012, Hack Reactor is a 12-week immersive coding school providing software engineering education, career placement services, and a network of professional peers. Hack Reactor has campuses in San Francisco, Austin, Los Angeles, and New York City, as well as an online, remote immersive (full-time and part-time)​. During the first six weeks at Hack Reactor, students learn the fundamentals of development, full stack JavaScript and are introduced to developer tools and technologies. In the final six weeks, students work on personal and group projects, using the skills they have learned, and learning more. After 800+ hours of curriculum, students graduate as full-stack software engineers and JavaScript programmers.

Hack Reactor’s immersive program is known for demanding a starting skill set beyond that of a beginner, so the applicants should allow 2 to 4 months for the admissions process. Applicants should start by enrolling in one of Hack Reactor's free or paid prep programs to learn the basics of JavaScript and prepare for Hack Reactor's technical interview. The technical interview lasts an hour and covers coding problems in JavaScript related to the prep course curriculum. After passing the technical interview, students begin Hack Reactor's 80-hour precourse.

Job preparation is integrated into the curriculum, and students will build an online presence, resume and LinkedIn profile by graduation. Hack Reactor places alumni in mid-to-senior level positions at companies in tech, including Google, Salesforce & Microsoft, with an average graduate salary of $105K (2017 San Francisco student outcomes survey; 81% survey response rate).

The Hack Reactor immersive coding bootcamp is focused on building autonomous, fully capable software engineers. Every unit in our curriculum has been pored over numerous times to optimize for educational power and efficiency. The first half of the course is often described as “drinking from a firehose” because of how much information it packs in. In the second half, you use your new skills to build projects, while learning new technologies on the fly. By the end you will be an autonomous engineer, capable of tackling unique, unfamiliar problems and building complex applications.

Financing

Deposit

After you have been accepted, a small deposit is required in order to secure your spot in the class.

Financing

Around half of our students receive help in financing their Hack Reactor journey. We work with lending companies that understand the investment you are making in yourself.

Students need to demonstrate they are: fluent with JavaScript fundamentals, able to think like an engineer, are driven learners and empathic communicators. We have a free prep program to help you develop these skills.

Prep Work

Hack Reactor focuses on merit, not prior experience. We provide prep programs for students from any background to study and pass admissions. Take our free self-paced online prep program or a live online prep class to prepare.

Placement Test

Yes

Interview

Yes

More Start Dates

October 21, 2019 - San FranciscoApply by September 14, 2019

December 9, 2019 - San FranciscoApply by November 2, 2019

October 21, 2019 - New York CityApply by September 14, 2019

December 9, 2019 - New York CityApply by November 2, 2019

October 21, 2019 - Los AngelesApply by September 14, 2019

December 9, 2019 - Los AngelesApply by November 2, 2019

October 21, 2019 - AustinApply by September 14, 2019

December 9, 2019 - AustinApply by November 2, 2019

Remote Part-Time Software Engineering Immersive

Learn full-stack engineering over nine months. Same Hack Reactor curriculum, program and quality - no need to quit your job. Class is held live online with two weeknights and one half-Saturday per week plus required independent study.

Financing

Deposit

After you have been accepted, a small deposit is required in order to secure your spot in the class.

Financing

Around half of our students receive help in financing their Hack Reactor journey. We work with lending companies that understand the investment you are making in yourself.

Tuition Plans

Applicants who would otherwise be unable to attend Hack Reactor may split their tuition into installments and finish paying a portion of tuition up to six months after graduation.

Students need to demonstrate they are: fluent with JavaScript fundamentals, able to think like an engineer, are driven learners and empathic communicators.
We have a free prep program to help you develop these skills.

Prep Work

Hack Reactor focuses on merit, not prior experience. We provide prep programs for students from any background to study and pass admissions. Take our free self-paced online prep program or a live online prep class to prepare.

I've read my fair share of controversial opinions about Hack Reactor before joining. Having been through the ringer, I've come out firmly believing that the school has its priorities straight. I've spoken with staff at all levels, from the CEO to hackers in residence (temporary positions filled by recent graduates), and I have found the staff to be focused on their students' success and very far from the cynical, short term, take-the-money-and-run type of mentality that is sometimes associated with bootcamps at large.

The bottom line is that Hack Reactor delivered on its promise to help me transition to a software engineering career. Making this transition is difficult and requires enormous effort. Hack Reactor does not substitute for that effort, but it fosters an environment where students can put out their best work for a sustained period. Hack Reactor builds a community of like-minded risk-takers 100% focused on learning and changing their lives, and I can say with certainty that I would never have achieved this change so quickly if it weren't for Hack Reactor.

In terms of downsides, I found the sheer size of their larger campuses intimidating. These campuses are abuzz with energy. It's a regimented learning environment that results from the pressures of graduate output and a high bar in terms of desired skill sets. It's an intense environments to be in, day in day out, and might feel alienating to some.

It's important to realize that learning is only half the battle. While Hack Reactor provides some structure and support for the job search in the form of a career coach and advice building a resume / cover letter / online profile / set of job seeking tactics, the period after graduating is critical to a successful transition. Hack Reactor will not provide a job on a silver platter. That's just not where the job market is at right now. Prolonging the structure of Hack Reactor into your personal life after graduating and before starting a job is key to success.

At the end of the day, I was able to transition careers with an $18,500 investment and 9 months of my time (including 3+ at Hack Reactor). No college I know of can provide that. The value is hard to beat. If you're driven by making this change, Hack Reactor is a great launchpad to guide your efforts.

This review is specifically about the alumni services/job search support. I graduated in August 2018 from the part-time-program. I entered in my second job search in April 2019 feeling uncertain because my first job out of Hack Reactor was not pure software engineering.

The alumni team was really helpful in ensuring my resume and experience would be enough to interest recruiters, and they connected me with a number of companies off the bat which was hugely helpful in building my job search pipeline.

The alumni team checked in with me regularly on my progress, always offering helpful advice and guidance. Negotiation help at the end was hugely helpful in not getting myself stuck with low offers and bad deals. Overall, the biggest thing that helped me was just having someone who understood the industry and job market really well. Quite a bit was different with my preferences from the first job search to the second. I can say with confidence that the Hack Reactor alumni team can and will adequately prepare you for both and beyond.

Years later now, I still look back very fondly on my time in Hack Reactor (now Galvanize). The instructors were great, my cohort was fantastic, and I learned more in a short period than I ever have before in my life (this from someone with a PhD!). They chose the curriculum based on what gave the best fundamentals and what were the most popular frameworks and libraries in jobs, combining the practicality and thoroughness you need to be a great developer. And they were always updating it (I even got to help update it as a Hacker in Residence) to keep it current.

It's scary to apply, scary to interview to get in, and scary during the bootcamp not knowing whether you can cut it. Don't sell yourself short by doing one of the easier bootcamps with no entrance exam or a slower pace. Let me tell you, it's so absolutely worth the money and the worry once you're on the other side with a great job and a start in a huge new career. And as an investment, it's immeasurable. I am now making more than would ever have been thinkable in my previous line of work, and honestly enjoying it much more.

Speaking of good investments, one thing I did not consider at all when looking at bootcamps but has honestly been the best ROI of the whole process has been the Alumni job search support. You know they'll help you with your first job search when you're done with the bootcamp, but I somehow missed that they'll support you in all your job searches for the rest of your career! Specifically I have to praise Marlene Tang, their alumni director. Literally her advice alone, pushing me to get multiple offers, always negotiate, and know what to say to negotiate in a way that's not going to alienate anyone, has literally more than paid for the entire cost of the bootcamp in salary raises.

I can't recommend the Hack Reactor program enough, and as I've been given to understand it, they've continued all the best parts of that under the new banner as Galvanize. I actually figured they would kind of let all the old alumni drop once the name/company changed, but they haven't at all! So one more nice perk: in this shifting bootcamp landscape, where companies get bought out and change hands all the time, these guys have provided a consistency that's hard to find elsewhere! I saw it first hand as it was just shifting from MakerSquare to Hack Reactor during my time at the bootcamp, and it's clearly continued since then.

I graduated from Hack Reactor in 2015 and have worked with the alumni team there -- most prominently Marlene -- for all of my job searches. They've been incredibly helpful with introducing me to partner companeis and helping coach me through the negotiation process.

Thanks to their guidance, I've been fortunate enough to negotiate up an extra ~50k during the four years that I've been working and know that I can always count on them to help out for my future job searches.

I cannot thank Hack Reactor Remote enough. At every stage, HRR provided the support I needed while keeping things very transparent about where I could improve.

My journey with Hack Reactor was an extensive one, all the way from the prep course till now, after landing my ideal job as a software engineer. HRR is tough...but well worth it. If you're ready to go "all in" then HRR is for you. The community is close-knit and emphasizes both great soft skills and great technical skills. I admire that HRR stays up to date with the curriculum, always updating and curating fearlessly. The entire instruction team (Hailey, Annah, Robin, and Cody) does a stellar job of communicating with the students to make sure they're progressing on pace. After graduation, the job support counselors also guide you through the job search process, and they're very attentive about finding opportunities that are tailored for your interests. My counselor was Nicole and she was such a key part of the process. Overall, amazing!

Hack reactor was an amazing program, and I can attribute my success in the field to it. It was fun, and intense, and I distinctly remember it being a work hard, get rewarded type of scenario. The instructors were fantastic, and the curriculum really taught you what you needed to know to succeed as an engineer in the valley. As grateful to the program as I am for what I learned there, what really amazes me is the support I continue to get from its Alumni Director, Marlene Tang.

Marlene is truly a lighthouse in the dark when it comes to actually functioning as a software engineer in the industry. Sure, Hack Reactor had gotten me in the door, but Marlene not only keeps me in the building, she pushes me to climb to the top. She gives support in working, learning, growing, promoting... you name it, she's there. Recently, I left my previous company and started looking for my next home. I brought it up, and as usual, without hesitation, she dove right in, set up meetings with companies, reviewed resumes, emails, and made sure I stayed on track. I just signed my offer, and she was a huge part of it. All I had to do was study! I honestly don't know how she does it all with an ever growing network of Alumni.

In addition to being a tremendous resource when you reach out to her, Marlene actively reaches out to the Alumni network to collect feedback and make it even better. She is ever present and if for some reason a HR graduate forgot about the immense support system available to them, it won't be long before Marlene is there to offer her precious time and energy.

All in all, Hack Reactor was an amazing experience and I'll never forget it. The real start of the show, and the one thing that continues to provide immense value on a consistent basis is it's extremely dedicated Alumni Director, Marlene, and her superhuman program. I can't emphasize enough that this is the one thing that puts Hack Reactor leaps and bounds ahead competition. Whether you're thinking about which boot camp to go to, or are currently a student, or have graduated long ago, you can rest assured that Marlene will take care of you.

My journey to becoming a Software Engineer began almost a year ago. It started with choosing which program to attend... that can be overwhelming. After a lot of research; I literally read every review I could find on App Academy and Hack Reactor. I decided to attend App Academy’s bootcamp prep course in San Francisco. The prep course wasn’t terrible, but I definitely don’t think it’s worth $3K I paid for it.

App Academy does offer a deferred payment option where you only pay for your tuition after you graduate and get a job. That seems pretty cool initially. Then I found out that if you fail two of their assessments you get kicked out of the program forever. For me that meant I would have to start all over at a different bootcamp (don’t quote me on this, but I heard anything under 90% on a test is a failing score). I just didn’t like that methodology.

After completing App Academy's bootcamp prep program I went to an info session for Hack Reactor in SF. I immediately felt like it was a better environment. I also liked the fact that the program was split into two phases with a technical assessment taken at the end of the first phase. If you don’t pass then you just repeat the first phase again. I decided to sign up for HR’s bootcamp prep course which is called SSP. It was a MUCH better experience for me overall and it’s only $250! It’s 100% remote, but that was actually one of the best things about it. You learn how to teach yourself and when you get stuck there’s always an instructor available to get on zoom with you and walk through your cod. After completing SSP I scheduled a technical interview and was accepted, but only to the extended program. I scheduled a retake for next week and was accepted into the HRATX40 cohort.

The great thing about Hack Reactor is that they are a part of https://cirr.org (App Academy is not as transparent about their data). CIRR is a non profit organization which provides a standardized system for measuring and reporting student outcomes for multiple bootcamps. I was surprised to find out that SF grads didn’t get jobs that fast. SF is the center of the world for tech, but this also makes it EXTREMELY competitive. This data played a significant role in my decision to attend the Austin campus. Fortunately for me I had a friend in Austin who decided to go through the program with me. So in February I packed up my bags and moved to Austin and start the program.

Hack Reactor is an intense program. Expect to spend at least seventy hours a week there. That being said I genuinely enjoyed being their every day. I can’t possibly descibe to you in words how incredible the staff at the Austin campus are. They go above and beyond to empower you to succeed. I can’t say enough great things about Linden, Zubair, Justin, and Nick.

Now let's talk numbers. There are twelve of us in my cohort. Three of them accepted Software Engineering Immersive Resident positions at HR before they finished the program. It’s been a little over a month since we graduated and only one person hasn’t received an offer yet. Offers for full time positions have ranged from $70k to $120k with the average being somewhere around $80k. That goes a long way living in Austin though. I’m currently writing this upon completing my first week as an Associate Software Engineer at a well funded startup in ATX. This program changed my life and it will change yours too.

Hack Reactor will change your life! I can't recommend this program enough, every single member of the staff is an amazing person that I'd be more than happy to maintain a connection with.

BE WARNED: This course is intense! You're going to be going about 70 hours a week for nearly 3 months straight. You'll probably constantly feel like you're behind, but making it all the way through is amazing! I'll never look back to my old life, attending Hack Reactor was the best decision I ever made.

TL;DR: Hack Reactor deserves its reputation as the best software engineering program on the market.

I'll talk briefly about three aspects of my experience: instructors/staff, curriculum, and career support.

From the paid prep course I took, all the way through the career support post-graduation, my instructors and coaches were absolutely top-notch. In any interaction with Robin (tech mentor), his respect for the students' investment is deeply evident: He is always extremely prepared. His skills and his ability to articulate them are razor sharp, and always current. And his teaching approach displays a keen instinct--he knows what you have within you, and he won't let you get away with anything less. He also won't let you drown. Annah (lead counselor) similarly does an excellent job balancing encouragement with accountability. She is meticulous about tracking your progress and your setbacks and being proactive to resolve them with you. Very early in the program, she makes it clear that you don't need to worry about your progress; she's taking care of that, and will keep you abreast of any pitfalls to watch for--you can save your mental energy for wrestling the immensely challenging material. Together, they make a stellar pair, and I cannot recommend them highly enough.

As for the curriculum: it is indeed immensely challenging. You will ride an emotional roller coaster, in whose plunging valleys you'll question your life choices, and on whose soaring peaks you will bask in the exhilaration of rapid, explosive personal growth. Hack Reactor is as much a bootcamp in time management, morale management, self-care, asking for help, and sheer grit as it is a bootcamp in software engineering. Over and over through those 12 weeks, you will look backward in abject shock at the heights to which you've grown in 2 weeks, then a month, then 6 weeks, then 12. What felt infuriatingly arcane and out-of-reach only days ago is suddenly crystal clear. Suddenly, you can make a full-stack app from scratch. Suddenly, new technologies aren't the least bit intimidating; you're totally assured of your own ability to learn them, quickly. And on the subject of the difficulty, I should mention: it's a level playing field. Everyone in my cohort came from diverse backgrounds, including computer science, music, mathematics, theater, law, painting, and medicine. Though our individual strengths and weaknesses matched up differently with different parts of the material, every last one of us had to struggle and wrestle and fight our way through--a shared experience which forged deep bonds amongst all of us.

Finally, career support. Put simply, it's outstanding. My career counselor was truly passionate about her job, and so, so good at it. Like a true coach, she pushed me to overcome the (sometimes excruciating) social anxiety of negotiation, she helped me reframe my perspective about self-marketing, she knew where to offer a pep talk and where to call me out on BS. The offer she helped me secure is honestly beyond my wildest dreams. I could not be more thankful for both the technical excellence Hack Reactor gave me, and the coaching she gave me to leverage that excellence in the real world.

I hope my glowing review doesn't read as improbable--Hack Reactor is not perfect. I ran into frustrations with curriculum organization, as well as some of the staff, including some frustrations which were non-trivial. However, my feedback was openly requested and graciously accepted, and I've seen the staff prove that meaningful changes are made to the program based upon student feedback. That's as much as you could ask of any program--especially one which prides itself on being ever-growing, ever-iterating, ever-improving.

If you're considering a career change into software engineering, Hack Reactor is the best investment you can make in yourself. Their outcomes stats paint a clear picture of excellence, and I'm ecstatic to be a new brushstroke of that picture. If you have questions about any part of the experience--prep, price, difficulty, job hunt experience, etc--I'd love to talk! Send me a message.

Let me state this ahead of time, if you are not capable of giving Hack Reactor 100% then do yourself a favor and save your money. Otherwise, if you are willing to devote 13 weeks to the program without any distractions and possibly another 6 months for the job search, then feel free to read about my experience with the Remote program at Hack Reactor.

Hack Reactor does its best job to express that the program itself is not for an absolute greenhorn. They will be expecting you to be at 20% once the program begins. They will then assist you from 20% to 90%.

THEY WILL NOT HOLD YOUR HAND.
They will lead you and assist you when you need help, but they will never just hand you the answer. They will make sure you've exhausted all of your resources before pointing you in the right direction. This is for your best interest, as it teaches you how to learn at an advanced pace and to appreciate the field.

YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF WHAT YOU GET OUT OF THIS PROGRAM.
From the moment you begin to the end of your job hunt, you have to be 100% dedicated. There are people who can complete the program by just doing the bare minimum, but that is not doing the program or you any justice. You have to be willing to isolate yourself from the world to focus solely on the program. Ask questions, read articles, explore related topics, break things, and find the multiple ways to fix what you broke. Jump into the many rabbit holes that they may present to you, and especially the ones that you find yourself. By the end of it you will be thanking yourself for fully committing to the program.

Again, I can't express how important it is for you to give it 100%. If you can make that promise then I highly recommend Hack Reactor, specifically the Remote program. You get a similar experience as those on campus, but with an added opportunity of working with people from all over the world, and not just those from the U.S. The program itself is grueling, but I can promise you that in the end it will all be worth it as long as you give it you all. You owe it to yourself to not skip out on any of the many tools Hack Reactor offers you.

I did Hack Reactor Remote from July-October, 2018. This was by far the most intensive training program I have ever been through and this is coming from a guy who worked on 2 master's degrees simultaneously in grad school (seriously don't do 2 degrees at once). After graduating from Hack Reactor I spent 5 months job searching before landing multiple offers and ultimately accepting a role with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in their Technical Apprentice program. Without a doubt Hack Reactor accelerated my programming skills, but more importantly it required me to build things as a team or during pair programming. This may come as a surprise to some, but software engineering is all about team work. The image of a lone wolf programmer hacking away in a dimly lit cave surrounded by empty cans of monster energy is just a myth. Real-world software requires you to work well with others, communicate, resolve conflicts, and learn how to use version control effectively (hint: learn how to use git).

Life at Hack Reactor
The actual program is intense and you will absolutely need to put everything else in your life on hold. The schedule is 6 days a week and many of us would also spend Sunday reviewing material in preparation for the next week. The day officially ends at 8pm, but I would usually continue working til about 10pm or 11pm on average. This program is not like sitting through a semester in college, you will be required to eat, breathe, and dream about code. I won't sugar coat things, I felt burned out about halfway through the program (in hindsight I should have forced myself to take Sundays off), but thanks to the incredible staff they really lifted my spirits and encouraged me to keep pushing forward. I'm incredibly grateful for their moral support during the program. The good news is, while it's a lot of work, it's also incredibly fun and you'll hopefully make some great friends along the way. My cohort still meets up once a month informally and we regularly chat with each other over slack along with thousands of other alumni. It's a very strong alumni network to be a part of and it's very common for alumni to refer others at their company.

Job Search
I won't sugar coat this part either, the job search is incredibly hard. Everyone, and I mean everyone experiences rejection along the way. You will get discouraged after sending out application after application only to get an automated rejection or to never hear anything at all. Don't get me wrong, there is extremely high demand for software engineers, the problem is most companies want experienced developers with a few years under their belt. Hack Reactor provides you with a career coach during your job search. I personally think the career coach brings 50% of the total value to the program. Her advice and help with negotiations was incredibly important. You also form job search groups with your peers so that you can study together and share advice/experiences with coding interviews.

Final Tips/Advice I have three things that you should do prior to Hack Reactor.
1) Get your finances in order. You will need to expect to be jobless for at least 6 - 9 months (I'm counting the 3 months of training here). While some of my peers landed jobs immediately, the bulk of us took around 4 - 5 months to land jobs, and some took even longer than that. The more time you have for the job search the better otherwise you may have to take a position less desirable or worse- drop out of the job search all together. Don't do this to yourself, you worked too hard to get to this point, so make sure you have the savings/loans to get you through 6 - 9 months of unemployment. The interview process at tech companies (especially big ones like Google/Amazon) are slow and have multiple stages (recruiter screens, technical phone screens, on-sites, leadership interviews etc.).
2) Study hard prior to starting Hack Reactor. I would recommend going through the Free Code Camp curriculum (https://www.freecodecamp.org/) and doing practice problems on Code Wars and maybe LeetCode. Because Hack Reactor covers a lot of ground in such a short time period, I find that I grasp the material much better the second time that I am exposed to it. In short, build yourself a solid programming foundation before you start the program and you will fare much better. It also probably wouldn't hurt to start learning about common Data Structures, Algorithms, and Big O notation (important stuff for coding interviews later on).
3) Relocate to a tech hub. I moved from Hawaii to Seattle and I firmly believe that if I had stayed in Hawaii I would not have successfully broken into the tech industry. Tech jobs are concentrated around key cities such as Seattle, Bay Area (SF + Palo Alto), L.A., Austin, New York, D.C., Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, and Denver. If you do not currently live near a tech hub, I would highly recommend that you consider moving to one either before or after you go through Hack Reactor.

Final Verdict
Hack Reactor is absolutely worth it. As someone who decided to do both a CS degree and Hack Reactor they both have their merits, but in terms of learning practical programming skills that you will be able to apply immediately, Hack Reactor wins hands down. To use a workout analogy, think of a coding bootcamp as akin to doing intense HIIT training. You spend less time doing it, but due to the intensity of the program you accelerate your learning rate. Or here's another one, say you wanted to learn a foreign language, what is more statistically successful- taking a Spanish class 3 days a week at your local university for an hour or saying to hell with it and moving to Spain for 3 months and speaking only Spanish? The immersion option is always much more optimal for the amount of time invested.

The TLDR version is that I attended Hack Reactor Remote (July - Oct 2018), and 5 months after graduating I started my new job as a Google Software Engineer. I highly recommend Hack Reactor.

PREP: I didn’t know any Javascript. I didn’t even know what terms like full stack meant. I did Hack Reactor's full time Structured Study Program for about a month prior to getting into Hack Reactor. I had to learn quite a bit to even be ready to apply to the program, and SSP gave me the structure, support, and resources I needed to make it into Hack Reactor.

HACK REACTOR: This program is not for the weak, but it works! I studied 9am-10pm 6 days a week for 3 months. The staff is really knowledgeable and compassionate. I fully expected the intense program to feel torturous, but I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually quite fun and pleasant. Although it was incredibly challenging and some days I felt discouraged, overall I really enjoyed the program and the people. I learned so much through lectures, Q&A sessions, videos, pair programming, team projects, reading documentation, and just googling stuff. The second half is less structured than the first and more like a real world work experience. After 3 months, I could build full stack web applications, I had learned how to teach myself new technologies, I learned how to debug and find answers, I had a pretty good understanding of data structures and algorithms, I knew a bit about system design, and I had gotten some practice for technical interviews under my belt.

REMOTE: I live in the Bay Area, but I decided to do the remote program rather than commute to San Francisco every day. I loved it! I studied from the comfort of my own home but got to collaborate with my cohort around the world through video calls and other tools. We got to know one another and work together in many of the same ways that you would in a physical classroom. During the last week several of us met up IRL in San Francisco.

JOB SEARCH: My career coach was amazing! Hack Reactor helped me with my resume, behavioral interview questions, technical interviews, and even negotiation. It was nice to have a career coach (as well as my cohort mates and other alumni) to ask questions and get encouragement even after graduating. The job search is hard and frustrating because you get rejected, and some companies aren’t even willing to give you a technical challenge because you don’t have X years of experience. I continued studying after graduation in order to do better in interviews. I mostly studied data structures and algorithms and practice interview problems. In the end I got a job and pay better than I could have imagined.

Hack Reactor LA was a really worthwhile investment me for me. I thought the curiculum and environment were excellent. That said, it is a huge investment, and like with any major expenditure, you should do lots of your own due dilligence about the pros, cons, and alternatives before making a decision.

In the run-up to attending, I used LinkedIn to reach out to people who had been through the program. These one-on-one conversations were by far the most informative part of my research. I'm happy to be a resource for you! Just reach out on LinkedIn :). I can also put you in touch with others I know from HRLA so you can hear a wider range of experiences.

BEFORE YOU READ: If you are not a diligent, self-motivated person, or if you think you can just easily get 100k+ salary right after you finish the bootcamp, then don’t even bother go to ANY bootcamps. But if you think you have the determination to take the challenges, read my SUPER HONEST review below. If you do read, please read it all. I know it’s long but they are useful information

Q1: Can I get a job after the bootcamp? Will I waste all my money and time going to bootcamp? This is the most frequently asked question and I will answer this first.

A: I graduated from Hack Reactor (Los Angeles) in September 2018 and landed a job in Downtown L.A on November 2018. There are people saying L.A has few openings for new developers. Yes, that is true but there are still tons of opportunities, you just don’t touch the opportunities that easily. And that also means you have less competition.

If the way you are looking for jobs is just sending resume on Indeed, you will have a super HARD time looking for a job. You need to connect with people! Go on linkedin, connect developers and recruiter, keep sending greetings (Hack Reactor will teach you all the career stuff in the last week entire week), go to meetups, go to tech events.

Another thing is don’t always look for Junior Devs, start as an Intern (even unpaid), put your self-ego down a little bit even you finish one of the best bootcamps in the country. I am pretty sure an intern’s skill level in a tech company can easily beat the top students in your cohort. Many companies are looking for Interns to do the easy but annoying tasks! I can 100% ensure you will learn a lot more doing those ‘easy but annoying tasks’ than learning from Udemy at your place!

Q2: How is Hack Reactor? Is the material good? Is it a good bootcamp?

A: It’s 100% a good bootcamp and the people who get in the boot camp are smart (you have to pass the interview and finish pre-course to get in). You have junior phase to give you foundation about Javascript and Node.js (database, React, Express server, async operations,data structure, etc). You have to pass an exam to continue the 2nd half of the course (you will pass if you study hard).

The 2nd half the course is project-base, one frontend and one backend. You will learn database optimization, AWS, Docker, Load Balancer, Agile Methodology, etc. THIS IS THE TIME YOU NEED TO WORK EXTRA HARD! Remember to take notes and get through as many possible tasks as you can! EMPLOYERS LOVE TO HEAR YOUR WAR STORIES IN THE PROJECTS! NOT JUST YOU LEARNED HOW TO BUILD A FULL STACK APP!

Q3: I heard some people say there is not much supervising, especially during the project phase, is that a bad sign?

A: NOT AT ALL! Tech Mentors will check all your work and there will be exams. Additionally, in your real developer job, YOU ARE MOSTLY ON YOUR OWN! Your supervisor will just give you a task and not much information to guide you through. Even you may work on group projects, NO ONE WILL WORK ON THE SAME TASK! People will work on different pieces and merge them together. Many real developers spend almost 50% of their time researching. Hack Reactor will train you to do that by only giving few instructions.

When I was in the boot camp, I was desperate for help and kinda think Hack Reactor is doing a bad job teaching without telling me the answer. However, when I got into the industry, I finally understand why they do this -- to train you to be independent, figuring out stuff on your own. I can also 100% ensure if you always ask for help after you get a job, you will be fired because people will see you as not independent.

SOME OTHER INFO ABOUT HACK REACTOR

They are always changing their course material to suit the most updated technology. They do a townhall every week to gather comments / criticism / advice from all students and they will try their best to change the operation based on people’s opinion.

Overall, I will 100% recommend Hack Reactor if you really prepare to work hard. If you can work super hard in Hack Reactor and reaching out to people in the industry after graduation, I am sure you can get your foot in the developer industry!

Before attending Hack Reactor, I had anxiety and imposter syndrome. I wasn't sure if I was able to succeed in computer science. However, after the first day of the program I was immediately supported by the HR faculty and my cohort mates. Every Hacker in Residence (HiR) who had gone through the program before had a similar story and experience to what we were going through and assisted us with understanding and kindness. The instructors were always encouraging and extremely knowledgable. By the end of the program, many of my peers had become some of my best friends.

THE COURSE

The program consisted of two halves. The first half consisted of JavaScript and computer science fundamentals such as Big O Notation, JS 'this' binding, and functional patterns. Some concepts were picked up faster by certain people, which caused a positive feedback loop of assistance between peers. An extremely important skill that was hammered into us was autonomous learning. Even though HiRs were readily available to assist us, they supported us attempting to search for answers on our own because this is an extremely valuable skill to have as a software engineer. And unlike many other fields of study, computer science and web development resources are bountiful and easily searchable.

The second half of the course consisted of two projects where we were split into groups of 3-5. During this time, we gradually increased the amount of interview practice along with learning some industry practices and technologies. Some valuable technologies/concepts they had taught us were that of Docker containerization, system design, AWS tools, and Agile Methodologies. This portion of the course was essentially a ramp up to let us out into the real world. Autonomy and time management was a key portion because of the freedom gained in the second half of the course, so self discipline and motivation is definitely key. If you did not have the motivation and self discipline to apply yourself in this part of the course, you were more likely to not absorb the material. Since it is largely self-motivated, several people who were not as focused struggled in this aspect.

The last week of the course consisted of job coaching from resume/cover letter writing to behavioral interview practice and even as far as negotiating a job offer. This instilled an extremely high level of confidence in my job search process and helped me interview.

I would also like to state that not all of the technologies and format may be correct if you were to attend now. Hack Reactor rapidly iterates their curriculum to keep up with the changing demand of skills in the web development field. One such change is the implementation of Docker. When we had an alumni panel, one of the alumni had stated that Docker was not incorporated into the curriculum when he attended the program a year before I had attended. With this, you can confidently be reassured that Hack Reactor are constantly on the lookout to make you the most desirable software engineer possible.

OVERALL

Why did I remove a star? Unfortunately, not many of my cohort mates were as lucky as me - someone else mentioned it already, but Los Angeles is not a great market for junior devs. If you are considering HR, I highly recommend you expand your job search to be outside of LA. I found a job because I moved to Seattle which had more junior dev openings than LA. Another cohort mate was able to find one in Boston.

The 2nd half of the program, since it was largely self driven, felt like we were all headless chickens trying to program. I sincerely wish they could have taught us more in the time since a lot of time was wasted. Upper management for the LA HR group was also lackluster and felt disconnected from the group as a result.

Overall, I would highly recommend Hack Reactor as a coding bootcamp. I gained so much confidence in myself both technically and socially because of this software engineering immersive, and have even obtained a job as a software engineer within the average time expected of a Hack Reactor grad (3 months).

WHO IS HR FOR?

Attend HR if you are able to be self-driven, motivated, and have a strong work ethic and passion for coding. I do not recommend this course if you are coming in half-assed and are expecting a fat paycheck to be handed to you at the end of the course. Many of my cohort mates and I have had to slave away for months applying, interviewing, and coding to be successful. Although HR does try its best to help you get a job, at the end of the day, that will be up to you on how much you want to apply yourself and how much you're willing to sacrifice sleep to succeed. There is only so much HR can do for you. They can teach you the skills, but the rest is up to you.

I attended Hack Reactor Los Angeles in summer of 18 and I had a very mixed and eye-opening experience. First off, id like to say that the educational portion of the corriculum is only done in the first half of the program. I dropped out after the first half, receieved half my money back (almost 9k), and finished the second half at home. I even managed to finish it faster than if I had stayed in the program thanks to most of the material being availabe on websites like Udemy for $10 (my cohort-mates filled me in on every topic I needed to cover to finish my front-end and back-end capstones).

Many of my ex-cohort mates complained that the majority of their time was wasted in the second half, and because it was mostly unsupervised, some even played LAN video games all day instead of coding because they were "stuck" and were just waiting for the smartest kids in the cohort to figure it out for everyone else (which is usually what happened).

What I believe is most important to say, is that the numbers they adverties are completely false. It is not as exclusive as you might think, and the number of students who get jobs afterwards is far fewer than they say. During my time there, the head of oporations told us that 25%, not 3% of applicants are accepted, demeaning the exclusivity of the entire experience. Next, Id like to say that at the time that I had been accepted (around early May 2018), Hack Reactor LA official stats stated that 53% of graduates got jobs in the first 3 months, and that number went up to the mid-70's at 6 months. It has been 5 months since my cohort (LA23, about 17 ppl) graduated (not including me obv) and only 2 have secured jobs so far. The cohort after me (LA24, about 19 ppl) graduated in Oct 2018 and as of writing this, only about 4 people have found jobs. I actually met a graduate from LA20 at a job interview in October and he still hadnt found a job yet, meaning he had been looking for somewhere around a year.

This is mostly due to what appears to be a severe lack in junior level and mid-level jobs in the LA area, but it also proves that now-a-days, going to an expensive coding bootcamp will not increase your chances of getting a job. They do well to tell you that when you sign up -- "dont think you're guatenteed a job", and in fact, sometimes they tell you not to even mention that you ever attended a coding bootcamp. Employers are weary of bootcampers now, and with another 20 engineers being pumped out every 3 months, the market for fresh engineers seems to be pretty much at capacity in LA. It seems to be more about who you already know that what your skillset is. Most of the smartest kids still dont have jobs.

I will say that, if you have the money to spend, that attending Hack Reactor will be the fastest way to get a broad range of skills and a general understanding of how to work with a basic MEAN/MERN stack. Before I attended Hack Reactor, my main problem was simply managing to code through projects autonomaously. meaning, If i ran into a big enough problem, I had no idea where to turn to solve it. After hack reactor, I can say that I was mostly autonomous and could finally start to figure out tough issues by myself. Hack Reactor gave me confidence, but unfortunately, it seems like the resume is what counts in this game. No job experience means no job. For this reason, many people in the cohorts I was familiar with are now turning to searching for unpaid internships...

Hack Reactor is by the far one of the best boot camps you can now attend. If you've considered a career switch to Software Engineering than I highly recommend that you take the leap of faith and enroll in Hack Reactor.

During your time at Hack Reactor you learn not only how to code like an engineer but to think like one as well. Being autonomous and a self learner is a must to succeed in Hack Reactor. You will be expected to put in a lot of work to grow as an engineer. It will be challenging but once you land your first job all the time and money you invested into the program will be worth it.

I have no regrets. Enrolling in Hack Reactor helped me become a Software Engineer and I encourage that you do the same.

I attended the remote program of Hack Reactor back in this year's spring. I went in with a solid understanding of programming in general, specifically back-end in JAVA and spring framework. My previous job was a software engineer position where I felt like my contributions and works were just a small drop in the ocean for the company. I wasn't satisfied with what I was doing and decided to leave the company. Alot of things happened between then til I eventually decided to join Hack Reactor but thats not important for this review.

Despite my prior experience, the Hack Reactor cirriculum wasn't a cake walk for me. Especially in week 3 where we had to learn 3 frameworks (backbone, react, and angularjs) in one week. I was spending extra hours after class on sites like egghead and medium reading and watching related videos to fully understand these frameworks, es6, and bunch of others stuff. This is also the week I realize how much I can learn in a such a short period of time, I didn't know I was capable of doing this. A life changing moment for sure and that would be an understatement. Since that week I started to develop a habit of buying one udemy course every few weeks, and I think I have learned more in past 8 months than the 10 years prior to that.

Robin was our tech mentor, a javascript ninja, but more than that he was a really personable teacher who was as engaging as he was knowledgeable. I regret not booking more office hour with him but part of Hack Reactor is learning how to learn. We also had Kyle and Annah as our shepherds (Teaching assistant). Kyle introduced me to this new world of graphQL, I'm a huge fans of graphQL now because of him. Annah is someone who would stay beyond her hours to help students. We're both from east coast and we would see her on helpdesk helping students after 12AM quite often. Annah is like a sister to me now and we talk all the time. Aside from this teaching trio, we also have Hailey, who was our counselor and possibly the most positive person you'll ever meet. And last but most important aspect of Hack Reactor in term of personnel, my classmate. Who would have thought, when you put a bunch of brilliant people who share the same goal together, good things happen. Now, its not all fine and dandy, espeically during our last 4 weeks (The last 4 weeks of hack reactor is what we call the thesis weeks. Hack Reactor would put us in a group of 4 or 5 and work on a fullstack application) where our group would run into some conflicts due to disagreements, and for a few times our group couldn't get anything done because of that. I really hope we could work in a smaller group where people would agree better (maybe a pair or even solo). That was easily the most unproductive time during hack reactor for me.

In term of job assistance there isnt much I can speak of. You can talk to your outcome coach or outcome HiR to review your resume, do mock interview with you, and for interview advices. And as far as I understand, this will continue throughout your jobsearch. There is also this huge network you will get through Hack Reactor and Galvanize which could be very benefitial. Thats pretty much it for job assistance. 4 months in and I still have quite a few classmate who are still job searching.

Overall I thoroughly enjoy my time in Hack Reactor. Was it perfect? No. Was it the best decision I made in recent years? Considering that my only other major decision in recent years is to heavily invest on ethereum when they were at 800? Easily. Would I join Hack Reactor again and do it all over from sratch? Absolutely.

Great staff and curriculum. The community is incredible.
I also learned a lot from my peers - everyone admitted at Hack Reactor is extremely sharp.
For anyone interested in leveling up their web dev / software engineering skills, this program is great.
I highly recommend!

One could not be happier with a decision than I am with mine to attend the Austin Immersive at Hack Reactor.

Like a lot of people my age, I have always been infatuated with technology and began messing around with computers and code at a young age. Over the years I have taken countless online courses but nothing ever seemed to stick. That being said I never really understood any of the deeper concepts needed to actually write meaningful code until I started the prep program for Hack Reactor.

I had never heard of coding schools like this before a few years ago and never did my research until my brother in law went to a coding bootcamp in Cleveland in 2017. I was very curious about his experience and started doing my research. He had mixed reviews and was definitely overwhelmed with the pace but I was intrigued nonetheless. After a couple weeks of research and talking to admissions with multiple schools I finally decided to get started with the paid Structured Study Program provided by Hack Reactor. It was the most in-depth and fast-paced training I had ever been through. Even if you decide to go to a different school this prep program is amazing. Once I was about halfway through the SSP program I decided to take the technical interview to get into Hack Reactor and passed!

After a lot of research and family discussion, I decided on the in-person immersive in Austin and it was incredible in so many ways. I was thoroughly impressed with how much the staff cared about our success and about us as people. The team was led by Linden Kueck who turned out to be as loving and helpful a teacher/leader one could ever have. I learned an unbelievable amount about computer science, data structures, algorithms and Javascript in a very, very short time but I am also very grateful for the unexpected lessons in team dynamics and soft skills like how to effectively work and communicate with other developers in the real world.

Aside from the unexpected, I can't express in words how much I learned in such a short time. The pace was nothing short of insane and I was not sure I was going to remember anything that was being taught or if I was even going to finish the program. Then all of a sudden things just started to click and I was instinctively writing clean, readable code and building applications all on my own. These guys know what they are doing.

After graduation, the team continued to help immensely and the career coaches were amazing as well. I interviewed for just over a month and landed a full stack engineering position in my hometown making 6 figures. The job hunt in this industry is difficult but Hack Reactor was there to help the whole way.

If you are serious about coding as a career move and are looking to do it quickly, I don't see how anyone could make a better choice than the Austin campus at Hack Reactor.

This program is great for people who want to get a job in the web dev industry. The program is jam-packed but there is a lot of information needed to be proficient in web development. You will be working hard and you will learn a ton. The staff is top notch and very knowledgeable. The curriculum is good and teaches what you need to know to land an entry-level job. The job support is really good, but don't expect them to find you a job. They will help you in your search with stuff like resumes, interviews, and keeping you on track. Everything I needed to do well in my interview I learned through Hack Reactor. If you are interested in a programming boot camp I could not recommend Hack Reactor more. ​

I just graduated from the remote, part-time program and had a great experience. The course is very challenging and you want to be sure you are prepared before you take the entrance exam. That's a good thing! It means that the people in your cohort deserve to be there. You will be working with them all the time, so you will learn from them and they will learn from you. The quality of the student body is one of the major reasons that I would recommend HR.

The program does a good job of taking your through the basics and making sure that you cover all the important bases (databases, authentication, frontend frameworks). As it progresses you get less and less hand-holding. There's always help desk, and the tech mentors are readily available, but the idea is that by the time you graduate, you need to feel like an engineer. That means knowing how to read documentation yourself and debug like a pro.

I'm graduating now with an strong sense of accomplishment and the confidence that I can pickup any framework or web technology and make it work and I couldn't ask for more. I've worked with seasoned engineers from Google during a hackathon and been a valuable asset already. Five stars, no reservations.

** Also, the part-time, remote program was perfect for me, as a full-time dad. Having 9 months to absorb all the material that folks cover in 3 months during the immersive is a serious advantage. It's also no joke. Be ready to commit all your Saturdays for 9 months straight to studying!

Think of software engineering as a trade and of Hack Reactor as a trade school. Sure, everything you learn at a trade school you could teach yourself, but you'll end up spending a lot more time and effort, probably go down the wrong path more than once and pick up quite a few bad habits along the way. Hack Reactor teaches you the tools of the trade, i.e the front- and back-end frameworks and libraries that are in demand in the job market now. They will also teach you some CS fundamentals, offer excellent tutorship during the 12 week program, and prepare you for the job search afterwards as well.

But what you get out of Hack Reactor will largely be what you put into it. You can put in the bare minimum effort and make it through, but you would only be doing yourself a disservice. Your 12 weeks at Hack Reactor offer you a chance to put everything you have into learning this new trade and starting your new career. If you give it everything you've got, at the other end of it all, you will probably be very well prepared to find a job and to perform well in that role. You will at times feel like you've made the wrong decision, you won't understand what you're supposed to be teaching yourself, you will feel like you're spinning your tires. Those are the times when you struggle your way through, then you go back for more in order to solidify the concepts in your head. It will be at times very stressful, but at the same time very enjoyable, because you are challenging yourself and overcoming.

I attended Hack Reactor Austin from January to April 2018, during which time I applied myself more to one end than I ever had before in my life. Within a month of graduation, I had gotten two job offers for three times as much money as I was making at my previous job. It was easily one of the best decisions I've made in my life up until this point, and I am not infinitely happier at my new job than I ever was at my old one. I want to go back and shake my old boss's hand for having laid me off, because he set a chain of events in motion that put me where I am now, at an excellent company with a great culture and fun co-workers who also genuinely enjoy what they're doing.

10/5. The Hack Reactor experience can’t really be put into word. I dropped out of college my sophomore year because it was super boring. I moved to San Francisco to attend Hack Reactor not really knowing what to expect. The first couple of weeks were really quite intense, the work load and the pace were something I defiantly wasn’t used to. After a couple of weeks you kinda start to settle in though. Nothing changes, the work load is the same and the pace is the same (if not more and faster) but you learn to adapt and get comfortable. When thinking about the qualities you hope to gain from a software bootcamp you might not think of a level of comfort with heavy work loads and long hours, but in this industry it is critical to your success. And I know that doesn’t sound great, but its a big part of why the average starting salary for a software engineer is 125,000$. Hack Reactor doesn’t necessarily teach you how to be a software engineer, they teach you how to make yourself a software engineer. You might not understand the importance of this, but it is the crucial difference that makes Hack Reactor grads successful. New technologies and verisons of techs come out almost every week, if not everyday, if you only learn how to be a software engineer today with todays tech you won’t last 2 months. Hack Reactor gives you the skills necessary to constantly and efficiently teach yourself new tools to continuously make yourself a great engineer, even after you graduate. Today Im proud to say I’m a Full-Stack Software engineer working in the Bay Area.

If you want to become a software engineer, Hack Reactor is your best bet.

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Attending Hack Reactor has been one of the best decisions I've made in my career. You could argue that you could teach yourself or maybe even try to go back to traditional school, but I believe nothing is as cost or time-efficient as attending the best bootcamp in the industry. There is plenty of free knowledge and alternatives out there to learn the skills of a software engineer, but for most people starting out it is incredibly difficult to know what to focus on. Hack Reactor will offer you a well thought out roadmap that has been proven to work for thousands of students. You're guaranteed to learn the most in-demand technologies and skills in the industry thanks to its rapid-iteration teaching approach, which provides frequent experimentation and rapid re-investment of findings back into the class. One of my favorite thing about the program is that is practical in nature, so be prepared to experience a non-traditional yet more efficient approach to education in which you'll learn by doing and collaborating with others. By the end of the program, you'll have an amazing portfolio of projects that will impress any hiring manager. And even after you are done as a student, you'll still benefit from the amazing career support Hack Reactor provides and you'll have access to the incredible network of Hack Reactor alumni. Be aware that attending this immersive program will be challenging, but I promise it'll be a fun and rewarding experience.